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The Dwarven Ruins (Finally)
The Night Before Finally, the day to depart for the recently-uncovered dwarven ruins arrived. There had been some setbacks along the way, but our brave adventurers were at long last ready to embark on the monumentous quest that had been handed down to them. At the very least, Mormiir was. Larkin had a cold and Hansel was somewhere between still drunk and hungover. Goro, meanwhile, was briefly nowhere to be found -- until his foster mother, Amari, stepped into her home to find him sitting ominous in the dark, waiting for her. Cutting right to the chase, he asked, “Hey, Amari, why did your magic stop working?” She hemmed and hawed for some time, protesting that she was worried he would get hurt if she told him what he was asking of her, but eventually relented. She admited that she was no longer a devout of Helm, and hadn’t been for some time -- not since Ripley had come into her life, wooed her, and told her that the Archbishop of the church, Frederic, was himself not even devout. Ripley and Amari believe that Helm was actually killed by another god -- Io -- during the Calamity three hundred years ago, and now the church is only a front for political power. Goro took this pretty well. “Oh, this is good news,” he decided. He promised Amari he would take care of himself, insisted that she keep her head, and met Ripley outside. Their encounter didn’t go quite as well -- she made a joke about not liking him, he returned it seriously, and it all ended pretty awkwardly. In Which Doors Are Difficult The next day, the party set out for the ruins, taking a teleporting pad there to cut off their travel time. The opening portions of it had already been excavated, but they were confronted by a large metal door that glowed red-hot. Mormiir touched it. This was a bad choice. There were also two buttons, some dwarven runes, and what seemed to be some sort of combination lock on the door. No one really paid much attention to the runes talking about how this city had been sealed off due to some terrible disease, and a defender left behind to keep it from being re-opened. That definitely wasn’t going to be a problem or anything. As two of their party were able to read dwarven, and Goro had the amazing ability to solve number puzzles, the gang was pretty quickly able to come up with a code to enter into the door. That was when everything ground to a halt. They put part of the code into the lock, then got distracted by the buttons, trying to figure out why sometimes they lit up and sometimes they didn’t. Hansel excused himself to go throw up several times. Goro stepped on Larkin’s tail. Giving up may or may not have been discussed. After some time, they realized that when the only dwarf any of them knew touched the dwarven buttons, that was when they lit up. Unfortunately, the two buttons were at least twenty feet apart, and Mormiir’s arms were not nearly that long. Goro tentatively suggested that they cut off a tiny bit of Mormiir’s beard to see if that would trick the button, but this wasn’t received well. So, the gang wandered around the surrounding area some, and happened across some old skeletons with a strange fungus growing on their faces. Dwarven skeletons. Larkin speared one of their hands on an arrow to keep the fungus at a safe distance, took it back to the buttons, and at long last, the door was defeated. As they entered the long-sealed ruins, Mormiir reminded everyone that if they found any loot in here, it was all totally his by birthright, but generously told them that they could always ask to borrow stuff. Everyone grumbled and rolled their eyes, except for Hansel, who was still vomiting in the previous room. Almost immediately, the party was beset by a lava-spurting trap and a clockwork giant wielding an impressive transforming trident/sword. Goro was quick to distract it with an illusory clone, which it stabbed the absolute fuck out of with its trident. Mormiir went low (this being his only option), slashing at its ankle with his axe, and Hansel showed up to the battle just in time to completely miss. Mormiir kept up his attack, effectively hamstringing the mechanical giant and bringing it to its knees, allowing him to sink his axe into its lava-filled heart. It got in one last desperate swing, but the bloodied dwarf was relentless -- he sliced off the giant’s arm and bashed it over, finishing it off. It whirred to a stop, its eyes going dark. With the battle over, a sniffly Larkin proceeded to loot everything she could. Mormiir didn’t seem to notice. Everyone agreed that this would be a good time to head back to Skyport to report in to Ripley and get some rest. They’d all had a big day. Return to Skyport Mormiir hauled scrap mithril and adamantine back to store at the guild, in case it might be useful in actually building the airship at a later date, and the rest of the gang went to Diva’s shop, where Larkin tried to sell her the giant’s broken heart. “Oh, this is … this is junk,” Diva said brightly. “I don’t want this.” She was then distracted by Goro, who had brought in a sample of the fungus they’d discovered just otuside the ruins. He tried to bargain with her, but they were unable to come to an agreement, and also, he might have had second thoughts about giving something to an eldritch abomination that she seemed quite so keen on having. Instead, he took it to Ripley for safekeeping. He later went back to Diva, revealing the new warlock powers he’d developed since making deals with her, and she was worryingly delighted about that, too, promising him greater powers at a later date. He got a little creeped out by this and left. He’d be back. Finally, Goro had one last stop. He met Ripley in her office and confronted her about what Amari had told him the previous night -- kind of. He implied that the two of them should work together to keep Archbishop Frederic … safe. Grimly, Ripley shot him down, citing his sketchy and secretive behavior of late, the fact that he wouldn’t be honest and talk with her, and had even upset Amari. Goro didn’t really know how to respond to this, and stormed out in an adolescent rage. Category:Session Recaps